Hah

Too much English. It’s not necessary to have a sentence by sentence translation - the explanations that follow are enough. I would prefer a longer text.

Neil

Do you also use the word “きしゃ” instead of “onsha”?
御社の代わりに貴社も使いますか？

I just remembered this Japanese tongue-twister
「貴社の記者が汽車で帰社しました」

The ご＝Chinese Origin, お＝Japanese Origin doesn’t always work. There are many exceptions.

All of the words with ご in front of them are the same in Chinese as in Japanese. So in Chinese, 利用 is to use something, and 主人 is also a word (it actually means ‘master’ as in the opposite of ’servant’ though…).

On the other hand the お prefix words don’t mean anything in Chinese - 客様 and 手洗 don’t appear in the Chinese language.

It might take a proper linguist to tell you why, but I would guess that the ご words are all older than the お words. They were taken from the Chinese in the wholesale import of 漢字.

そうかな？

Examples:
お客様　(guest), お手洗い(bathroom)
ご利用 (usage of someone’s service), ご主人(husband)